Without Restraint, Unafraid and Free
by Hermangarde
Summary: The most awesome girl to ever descend on Paris becomes Jehan Prouvaire's mistress, and adventures ensue.
1. Chapter 1

In a certain street in the Latin Quarter was situated a certain house, and in that house lived a certain number of residents. It is the resident who lived in the garret apartment with which our story is concerned. We will leave the rest of these residents to their lives. In this garret apartment - for the house's construction only allowed enough space for one little garret, owing to the slanting ceilings and odd corners at the roof.

One young woman lived there, alone in the garret, without any family or friends as room-mates. Her family were mostly dead, at the time we open our story; and she did indeed have a number of friends in a variety of social circles; she merely preferred her dwelling to be solitary.

We will spare a few words for her history.

She was born in a little town in a certain province, the eighth child to a family that was prosperous, and not wealthy, and boasted of seven sons born before her. Her poor mother had wished in her heart for a household full of daughters, but alas! she was the only one in a family full of boys. The mother was overcome with such joy at finally having brought forth a daughter, that the child was christened with all the names the mother had been saving for female offspring, and thus this child was christened Hermangarde Ophélie Marie Opal Améthystine Esméralda Thérèse Thiérry de Quiquevaille. Her father, who was not of the nobility, clung desperately to his particle, the only remaining shred of upper class evident in the family and its name. In the mouth of a small child, this enormous name got shortened to Phélie, a smaller mouthful and thus far easier to pronounce, and so she was to her family and her friends.

Phélie was always a beautiful child. Even as an infant in the cradle, people would remark that she would grow up to be a famous beauty. Her eyes, deep blue as a baby, darkened to an unusual violet; another feature that caused people to exclaim over her in the street. Her nose was perfectly formed; her eyebrows perfectly arched. She had a high, smooth forehead; from the crown of her head grew beautiful tresses of deep raven black. Her mother loved her child's hair, which she allowed to grow thick and long, and as the baby grew into a little girl, the mother delighted too in lovingly brushing and arranging her hair, perhaps to show off to her neighbours that her child was prettier than theirs.

Her brothers were all one by one sent off to boarding school; but Phélie's mother insisted on keeping her close, and educating the little girl herself. Her brothers would come home, full of stories of new friends they had met while away and resentment for teachers who were too hard on them. Phélie wished for an education too - something more than the lady's education from her mother, which she found dull, unfulfilling, and terribly boring.

One day, one of her brothers came home with an illness that he had caught from one of the children there. The people at the school had sent all the children home at the first signs of illness, but Phélie's brother had already gotten the disease, whose symptoms showed as he arrived back at the house. The disease, which Phélie herself didn't catch, slowly spread to the rest of her family. Her brother died, he who brought the illness home; then her mother, then four brothers, then her father. She was left with two brothers, one of whom, like her, did not catch the illness; the other of whom had a much weakened constitution as a result, and was never the same hale and hearty young man he was before the disease. The healthy brother, Marc-Antoine, had passed his baccalauréat, and was trying to convince his father to send him to law school in Paris. But with the death of the large part of their family, he had had to change his goals slightly. He determined to take Phélie and their brother, Paul-Hyacinthe, to Paris - so that he could study law there, and still find ways to provide for his young siblings, who were both at this time too young to look after themselves.

The family's inheritance enabled the two children and their older brother to travel to Paris, and rent several rooms in a comfortable house, as well as for Marc-Antoine to pay for his entrance to the law school, and for his books and exams. Thus, in 1817, Phélie at eight years old, with her delicate brother of ten, and her older brother of eighteen, became Parisians, renouncing their provincial origins. Marc-Antoine, not oblivious to the sensitive nature of the upbringing of little girls, scraped together some money to pay for a companion to the girl: a woman who was younger, perhaps by ten years, than their mother had been, who had lost her two children to illness and her father to the Russian's in Bonaparte's army. This woman, Marie-Thérèse, served as chaperone to Phélie and maidservant to all three of them.

However good and lofty an older brother's intentions, however, they can never replace those of a child's true father. A brother may have a good heart, yet not possess the necessary qualities for raising a family. Marc-Antoine was young, healthy, intelligent, and understood the great responsibility that had been laid upon his shoulders, and undertook with all his might to handle it as well as he can. He tried with a will, every day, but he could not make the family as happy or as healthy as it had been before illness had borne away their siblings and parents. He awoke early every morning and was often the last to bed, spending his days torn between studies and classes, and the odd jobs he found around the city to support his younger siblings, and Marie-Thérèse.

However much he tried, all his best intentions soon began to wither away, as some time began to pass.

Paul-Hyacinthe spent more and more time on the streets of Paris, rebelling against older Marc-Antoine more and more. He grew thin and wiry in Paris, and began befriending the local street urchins. One day he didn't come home. Phélie spotted him on a street corner with three other urchins on a walk with Marie-Thérèse. She didn't understand why he hadn't come home in a week, and called out to him.

"Paulin! Paul-Hyacinthe! It's your sister, oh, why won't you come home!" But the boy ignored his sister's cries, pretending he didn't hear, that he didn't even know the silly little girl who kept calling his name.

Phélie ran across the street to talk to him. That didn't do her any more good.

"Listen," said her brother to her, when she approached, smiling, her hands outstretched to him, "listen, Phélie, you can't call me that anymore. They call me Jacques now. I'm not ever coming home, ever! Don't you see how cruel it is, to be living all day with your brother? Wouldn't you rather live and be free all day, never having to study or work, but only to run and play?"

Phélie started to cry upon hearing these harsh words from her brother, and ran across the street to her chaperone, back to Marie-Thérèse, who had been urgently calling the little girl back to her.

"Watch out!" Though Paul-Hyacinthe, now Jacques, claimed to have no family anymore, he still remembered his fraternal love for his sister. He had seen the carriage and its two horses hurtling down the street when Phélie had not, and frantically ran after her, to pull her out of the way.

He was too late. The horses struck him, dropping him to the cobbled streets; after having swerved to miss the little girl fleeing across the street, they couldn't fail to hit her brother in hot pursuit. He was dead before Phélie or Marie-Thérèse could get to him.

"Watch where you're going, street scum!" A fashionably-dressed, though fantastically ugly, young man leaned his head out of the window of the carriage. "Look, your foolish brother has injured my horse-see how he favours his foreleg." The young dandy had not yet seen Phélie, who was crouched next to her brother, eyes as wide as saucers and as pale as fine china. But upon hearing this disdainful proclamation, she stood up.

"My brother is not street scum. Who cares if your horse has a sore foot; he has killed my brother." She looked unflinchingly at the dandy as she said this, unaware of the effect or possible consequences of these words. Marie-Thérèse made to pull the little girl back, horrorstruck.

The dandy saw the little girl and was struck by how pretty she was, and this caused him to actually get out of his carriage and examine the dead boy, then his sister. Her hair was long and flowing, and she had long ago unplaited her hair which Marie-Thérèse had carefully done up for her earlier that morning. Her eyes were shining with tears, and a deep blue-violet, a shade that could captivate even then coldest heart. She was small, but not frail; she was sweet, but not fragile; she was a small girl but she was not timid or afraid. All this the dandy saw, and considered. Finally he spoke. "All right, so he is dead. I cannot give him back to you, but perhaps you will allow me to pay to have him buried."

"With a gravestone with his name on it," prompted Phélie. "I've seen the beggar's graves, you know, they throw dozens of bodies in and don't even say who's in there. How do their families find them, then? I want to be able to find my brother even when I'm old."

"Yes," said the dandy, "all right, with a gravestone with his name on it." He went back to his carriage, and came back with a little embossed card. "I live at this address, just send to me and I'll take care of everything."

This was the first time, but certainly far from the last time, that Hermangarde-Ophelie was able to use her natural beauty and charms to talk a man into doing what she wanted. At the time, she was too young, too innocent, too experienced in the ways of the world to understand very well what had happened, what she had really done, and how she had done it.

But the worthy Marie-Thérèse saw immediately how this silly fop had looked at her charge - saw the gaze he assumed once he caught sight of this beautiful and extraordinary child that was in her charge. She knew right away that she would have to be more careful on behalf of this little girl, who would one day grow up to be a formidable young lady with plenty of feminine wiles at her disposal. Marie-Thérèse, though now old, certainly understood woman's wiles, for what woman does not? She had understood her own feminine charms and had employed them at many times during her youth, and determined that she would teach this little girl not only how to use her natural charms - an envy for any woman who had to painstakingly acquire charm, wit, and beauty, was a younger woman or girl who had them naturally without having to work for them at all - but also how to protect herself from men who preyed on her because of those charms.

Marie-Thérèse therefore took the little girl firmly by the hand, after, of course, she had made definite arrangements for the burial of Paul-Hyacinthe. She took the girl home, and set her to her studies, and waited for Marc-Antoine to come home. It was very late before the young man appeared - he had gotten a job only this week as a waiter at one of the Latin Quarter restaurants popular among students, a restaurant which was therefore open late. His haggard appearance and look of sheer exhaustion softened the old lady's heart and the stern lecture she had planned for him.

"Your brother is dead," she said. "He was hit by a carriage this afternoon."

"What!" Marc-Antoine was stupefied by this revelation. "But we have not seen him in above a week! How do you know he was killed?"

"Phélie happened to see him on the street. I wouldn't have noticed him if not for her." Briefly, Marie-Thérèse recounted the events of the afternoon: how the boy proclaimed himself no longer part of the family, but had courageously tried to save his sister from certain death from a coach-and-four, dying himself in the process - and the dandy whom Phélie had talked unwittingly into doing anything she asked of him, including paying for her brother's funeral Mass. Marie-Thérèse was most solemn and emphatic when explaining the intentions she had in mind for the little girl, and her worries and concerns about the frequency of this sort of thing happening in the future.

"No. You are right. I knew it when we came to Paris," said Marc-Antoine with a sigh, "she will be noticed. That is why I undertook to find her a chaperone like you. If she were a little boy I would have simply taken care of both young boys myself, but with a girl I cannot teach her anything or lead her anywhere. What would you have me do? I cannot think of what else I can do, that I can afford to take care of."

Marie-Thérèse smiled. "Make sure she has friends. Send her to convent-school. There are nuns and convents in this city who will take girls on charity, especially if they are known to be orphans. All you need to do is take her to one of these schools, explain that you are her brother and her parents are dead, and they will understand. A brother can not be a girl's mother, no matter how he tries."

"But how should I know what school to send her to? I have never been to Paris before; I don't know anything about these things!" Marc-Antoine seemed desperate, and lost, and very unsure. "Are you sure it is so important?"

"Yes," said Marie-Thérèse firmly, "otherwise she will end up like her brother, and you don't want that to happen."

"No, I don't. What do you advise, then?"

Marie-Thérèse smiled. "Send her to the school at the convent at Petit-Picpus. The nuns there are devout, and they educate girls of all ages and walks of life, from poor pauper orphans to even children of rich nobles. She will be able to make plenty of necessary friends there."

Marc-Antoine was convinced of the soundness of the old lady's gesture and her advice, but still he wavered. Of all his family, Phélie was the only one left. All his brothers and sisters were dead; his parents were dead; his grandparents lived far away in the provinces, and his cousins also. He didn't want to be alone, without any family at all. He delayed on sending her to the school. First he said it was because the school year had already begun - and at the time Marie-Thérèse had the conversation with him, it was true; then, when it was time for a new school year, he delayed again, saying he thought Phélie was ill and he didn't want to send her to a convent to make all the other girls ill; the year after that, when Phélie was ten years old, he went to inquire at the school and they said they had closed the school to new enrollees since there were already too many. Finally, in 1820, Phélie herself, who was by now eleven and much taller and much prettier than she had ever been before, begged him to take her to the school: she was bored at home, she had already read everything in the house twice over (even his law textbooks!) and wanted more education. Marc-Antoine consented, being absolutely unwilling to refuse his little sister anything, and Phélie became a schoolgirl of the convent of the Petit-Picpus.

When Marc-Antoine came to the door, and announced his intentions to have his sister Hermangarde-Ophélie become a pupil there, the nun in charge smiled. The school was described to him, since he was not allowed to set foot further into the convent than this entrance hall, and the rules were explained to them in detail. Phélie looked around her with wide eyes, taking in the surroundings in silence while her brother and her chaperone took care of the details. Marie-Thérèse had had the foresight to get the girl the appropriate uniform all the schoolgirls there wore, and Phélie had already put one of the dresses on. Marc-Antoine was surprised at the strictness of the rules regarding visitors, but one look at Phélie told him it was a good decision: she already looked eager to begin this new part in her life. He kissed her one more time, then left her to study with the good nuns.

Every visiting day, Marc-Antoine would come. At first he brought Marie-Thérèse, then as time wore on, he brought a girl with whom he'd been living - a grisette named Odèle. Odèle was pretty, had big white teeth, and a few smallpox scars on her cheeks, as well as reddish-blonde curls that fell cheerfully from her head.

One day, some years along into her education, Marc-Antoine and Odèle came to visit, and Phélie was bursting with a story.

The convent life was quiet and sheltered, and previous visits had been full of conversation about the other girls in the school, the nuns, and the things Phélie was studying. Phélie had said all the nuns were surprised at how well she could read, and were often finding new and creative ways to keep the girl interested in her studies. Of course Phélie was always very diligent at her studies, and never whispered to her neighbours during church services or classroom time, and always faithfully read her Bible and prayer books, and studied everything the nuns set her to. She made friends easily, and sometimes one of her schoolgirl friends would laughingly come and pull her by the hand away from Marc-Antoine, to introduce Phélie to her own family.

But this time the story was different.

"Oh, Antoine, you won't ever guess what just happened not too many days ago!" Phélie had grown taller, and even more beautiful, which surprised no one who had ever known her. Though the schoolgirl uniform was severe in its modesty, still you could see the outlines of the new womanly body forming on this girl of fourteen years.

"What happened?" Marc-Antoine was prepared for some girlish story of finding an abandoned baby bird in a nest in a tree, or some secret shared between his sister and some of the other convent girls, or even a scandalous rumour about one of the novice nuns.

"A man showed up, all of a sudden! With his daughter, who goes to the school here."

"What? a man? what does a man need with a convent?"

"No one knows where he came from, but the gardener says the new man is his brother, and they both work in the gardens. They wear bells so that the nuns and the girls know when they are coming and can avoid them. But the gardener says the new man only stays because his daughter - or maybe it's his granddaughter, he's a very old man, Antoine, he's got white hair all over his head - because his daughter has become a pupil here."

Marc-Antoine nodded. "And what is so strange about that? Maybe he is too poor to have any other living."

Phélie shook her head vigourously. "Oh no! It's not that they are here, that is so interesting - it's how they came! Mother Innocent died, and they buried her in the churchyard, and all of a sudden the next day here was this man and this little girl, waiting to be let in. It's as though the nun's death brought them here. It's all anyone has been able to talk about lately."

"Well, it's good for you to have some excitement sometimes!"

And from there he began the familiar discussion of her studies. It was becoming more clear to Marc-Antoine that his little sister was too well-educated to stay in the convent any longer, especially after the remark from the sister that took her out to him in the visiting room, a remark that hinted they were trying to get her to take her vows. True, the nuns here tried to convert all of their pupils into novices of the order, but rarely succeeded. But they had taken a special interest in Phélie, who was by far and away the prettiest and cleverest and most intelligent of all the girls here.

When he got up to leave, at the end of the visiting hours, Phélie flung herself at him for an embrace. "Oh, when will you come to take me home?"

"Are you not happy here, then, Phélie?"

"Oh yes! It's wonderful here. But I miss you. I could come live with you and Odèle again, wouldn't it be nice? Only it's getting boring here, I've learnt everything the sisters know, and they want me to become a nun and I don't think I could be a nun and live here forever and ever, not getting to see the world."

Marc-Antoine smiled at her. "Next time I come visit, tell me whether you want to come home again, and I will arrange it."

Only Phélie never saw her brother come to visiting hours at the convent school again. Two occasions in a row, Phélie was left without any visitors at all. She stopped expecting her brother to come, and told the other girls her brother had found another girl and forgotten all about her.

Then one day, on her sixteenth birthday, she was surprised. One of the sisters came and took her out of the classroom where she was working on needlework, and told her to come right away to the visiting room. Visitors were almost never allowed except on the special days allotted, so she was extra curious.

An older Marie-Thérèse stood waiting. "I have come from your brother," said she to Phélie, "he wants you to come home."

"But I thought he'd forgotten about me!" Phélie exclaimed. "He hasn't come in almost two years. Antoine promised-"

"I know. He got very busy. You see, he decided to finish all of his studies last year, and finally become a lawyer." Marie-Thérèse looked sad. "Your brother told me he felt so very wretched at the thought of not coming to see you, but when he tried to come at a day other than the regular times allowed by the convent, they turned him away, even though he is your only family. He couldn't take himself away from his work on the visiting days. Finally he sent me, told me not to leave until they let me take you home - he's gotten ill and the doctors say this time he won't get better."

"Oh!" Phélie began to cry. "Then I want to go home, now!"

Argument ensued between Marie-Thérèse, and the sister overseeing the visit, until finally upon a tearful plea from the girl herself, the good nun agreed to collect Phélie's things. Marie-Thérèse had hired a man with a cart to bring Phélie and her trunk away from the school. Phélie didn't get the chance to see her schoolmates again, because soon several strong nuns had brought out her trunk to her, and she went home to her brother's apartment to the Latin Quarter again.


	2. Chapter 2

Marie-Thérèse had not been sent to fetch Phélie in vain: when sixteen-year-old Hermangarde-Ophélie walked through the door, she saw her brother lying motionless in his bed. On the table next to his bed was a collection of bottles of medicine, a basin, a washcloth, and other things meant to alleviate his pain and suffering.

It wasn't the same apartment that Phélie remembered leaving, so many years ago. Her brother had moved to a different apartment, with his girl Odèle - but Odèle was afraid of his illness and had not been seen in a few weeks. Phélie wasn't sure what was more sad: that her brother had had no one who loved him by his side for these many days, or that a girl he had moved his entire life for didn't care for him as long as he didn't have his full health.

Such girls are not uncommon. There are girls who long for a man: girls for whom the idea of being alone is repellent to them, so repellent that they would do anything or bend any morals in order to not be lonely. They will in due course find young men who are happy and healthy, and have at least the appearance of having some money. But when these men lose either their wealth, or their income, the girls will disappear soon after, to latch onto another young man with all his health and plenty of money.

So it was with Odèle, and Phélie realised now when she thought of the girl who had accompanied her brother on a few of those convent visits, that she hardly remembered any specific details of her brother's former mistress.

It wasn't a mistress he needed now, only a doctor. Marie-Thérèse quietly told Phélie that the doctor came often, and always demanded money first, now that her brother was continuing to be ill, rather than recovering. The money left from their inheritance and from the work her brother had done now and again was dwindling more and more quickly now that her brother couldn't do any work. Marie-Thérèse was old, and had severe rheumatism in her fingers and knees, and was therefore not capable of much work herself. The family was soon becoming poor.

To Phélie, her duty was clear. For many years her brother had made sure that she had enough to wear, enough to eat, somewhere to sleep, and a good education; and now it was her turn to take care of her brother.

Neither Phélie nor old Marie-Thérèse ever discussed the possibility that Marc-Antoine might die: they both knew it was more than a possibility and nearly even a certainty. But Phélie was still young enough to be idealistic, even after having seen all the rest of her family die almost before her very eyes, and she believed that surely she would have some family remaining to her, even if it meant doing some things on her own that perhaps she might never have wanted or needed to do, had her parents and her brothers all remained alive through her childhood and beyond.

Before the money could run out entirely, before Marie-Thérèse's eyes and fingers were too worn for anything, before the doctor would refuse to come for lack of payment and the landlord threaten to move them out, Phélie began quietly looking for means of employment on her own. She could sew and embroider: the nuns at the convent praised her altar cloths endlessly; but being young, clever, intelligent, and perceptive, she knew it was smarter for her to become like Odèle and her friends: find a young man with money to lavish it upon her. She remembered all the stern discussions of propriety, chastity, modesty, and how to make a good marriage from the nuns at school. But this young woman had no mother; she saw her brother so taken with a girl that he bought her pretty clothes and expensive presents; and she wondered if she couldn't do the same. Phélie wasn't vain enough to spend time admiring herself, but she knew she was far prettier than Odèle was, or even any of the girls she knew from school, and if Odèle could become some man's mistress with nothing to recommend her than her looks, than certainly so could Hermangarde Ophelie.

Let us pause a moment, to examine this extraordinary young woman and this period of history.

In 1825, Hermangarde Ophélie Marie Opal Améthystine Esméralda Thérèse Thiérry de Quiquevaille was sixteen years of age. She was no longer a small, pretty child, with big eyes and hair falling loosely down her back, dressed charmingly in provincial dresses and willing to smile at anyone. She had become a tall, beautiful, well-formed and well-built young woman.

Age had not completely straightened the waves that her mother had found so charming and had loved to arrange, only made them more alluring to all who saw her hair. When she unpinned and unplaited her carefully-done-up locks every evening, the hair fell in cascades nearly to her knees. It was thick, full, luxurious, and was the envy of every woman who had half a chance to look upon it. She had a high forehead, which brought to mind, to anyone who gazed upon her face, the high horizon of a summer morning at dawn. Her face was pale, yet her cheeks were often rosy. Her skin was the colour of delicate china, imported from Peking in a box and wrapped in layers of silk to prevent it from breaking, and the colour on her cheeks reminded one of the exquisite paintings rendered upon a particularly well-made platter. Her skin was beautiful, smooth, completely unblemished by so much as a freckle or pimple. Her nose was well-formed, neither too long nor too short, straight, slender, with gentle curves, and slightly upturned at the tip. Her nostrils were a delight to anyone who gazed at them. Her eyes were a striking deep violet colour, deep and penetrating, yet soulful and full of emotion; her smile was reflected in the gaze of her eyes. Surrounding her eyes were perfectly curved black lashes, which, when she cast down her eyes, lay upon her cheeks as delicately as dew upon a newly-blossomed petal. Her eyebrows were arched, perfectly formed, and complemented her eyes perfectly. Her smile would light up the room, and were it to fall on anyone who had had a particularly trying or upsetting day, it could almost immediately lift their spirits. Her teeth were white, brilliantly so, all perfectly straight without any unsightly gaps between them. Her lips were full and red, and when formed in a pout would be certain to bring any young man to his knees for her. Her figure had curves that would make any painter sigh with delight; her breasts were round and pert but not too large as to detract from the rest of her form. Her hips swayed just the minutest amount when she walked, a sure sign of a young girl who hasn't yet learned all the tricks of attracting young men to her. Her hands were long, slender, delicate, without too many callouses or rough spots, the only exceptions being those she gained from needlework and writing. Her legs were plump, with well-turned ankles and ravishing knees. Her feet, pink and soft and beautifully formed.

In short, Phélie had grown up to be a ravishingly beautiful woman. She knew it, too, though it had not made her vain or self-important; she merely knew it could be a tool in her quest to find a way to help her brother. She occasionally felt rather down on herself, to be doing it in this way, but over time, while she considered the idea, she determined that she could do it so that it made her happy and gave her a way to help her brother at the same time - she could try to make it so she met someone pleasant, not merely convenient.

Phélie began to go out into Paris every day in order to meet people. In this case, in order to meet young men with plenty of money. She visited all neighbourhoods, all streets. She would dress herself in her nicest clothes, painstakingly arrange her hair, and go to sit in coffee houses on days that it rained, and on park benches on days that the sun shone, and when her old school friends responded warmly to her letters, she managed to get invited to some of their dinner parties as well. On days she was alone, she would bring a book or small knitting with her to keep her hands and eyes busy.

One fine day, a young man sat beside her on the bench in the Luxembourg where she was reading. The sun was brilliantly bright, and she had sat on a bench under a tree whose leaves expanded over her like an enormous parasol, shading her delicate pale skin from the sun while her own parasol lay across her lap. Though she had noticed the young man, she spent several minutes continuing to read calmly, serenely, as though she had not seen him at all. To her dismay, after a few minutes the young man made a half-aborted gesture, then got up and walked away quickly. She therefore returned to the garden the next day, and sat in the same place, carrying the same parasol and reading the same book, her hair carefully arranged the same way. That same young man returned, and this time sat beside her for an entire hour, before getting up and leaving, though this time in a less frustrated manner than before. She wondered if he was perhaps shy around women, but Phélie did not stop him from leaving this time either.

Day after day, even when it rained, she walked that way. She went to the same bench at the gardens, at the same hour, wearing the same hairstyle and carrying the same book and parasol, several weeks in a row. Meanwhile, the money back at home was disappearing and her brother, who had appeared to grow better for the first days after Phélie returned home again, was again in very indifferent health, and choosing to stay in bed. Increasingly annoyed by this young man's refusal even to address her, Phélie decided that this day would be the very last that she tarried here in this spot, waiting to see if this young man who seemed actually interested in her would ever attempt to speak to her.

Again he arrived, a little earlier than usual. He carried a few flowers in his hand, which he placed on his lap atop a book of his own. For two hours she sat reading quietly, as though she hadn't seen him sit beside her (she had). For two hours he sat beside her quietly, hardly moving or indeed doing anything at all other than watching the ants scurry past on the ground.

"Mademoiselle," murmured he, "I cannot help but notice how engrossed you are in that book."

"Yes," said she, "it is one of my favourites." Phélie responded in a pleasant manner, though she did not yet raise her eyes from the page.

"I wrote it, you know," he said, nervously turning over the book he held in his hands, "The poetry in that book. I was a great deal younger and poorer when I wrote it, however."

This caused Phélie temporarily to stop her coy flirtation. "You wrote these verses? They're beautiful." She looked away briefly. "I admit to a slight untruth when I said it was my favourite book. It was a gift from my brother, and so I am fond of it, but it is not my favourite thing."

"Might I ask, Mademoiselle, what your favourite book truly is?"

Phélie smiled at this young man, who, now that she had finally looked, realised he wasn't so very young after all. Thirty five years of age, perhaps forty at the uppermost. Still, though not young any longer, he was still fairly good looking, with a wide smile, shy and awkward; hair that didn't seem to lie flat regardless of attempts to tame it, and of a warm brown colour that almost exactly matched his eyes. Phélie wouldn't say she was instantly in love, but would happily use the word enamoured - and later, infatuated.

They began a long conversation, lasting nearly to twilight, whereupon Phélie promised to return the next day. True to her word, she returned - though at a slightly earlier hour. He was already waiting for her.

She knew she had beguiled him. She knew, after their long conversation, that he was no longer poor. And, at the end of their second day of conversation, she knew he wanted her to be his mistress. Thus, she didn't return home to her brother until late the next morning.

"Where have you been at?" demanded Marie Thérèse, when she came in,

"I've got a lover," replied Phélie calmly.

"You! A lover!" Marie-Thérèse sputter out a few half formed objections, before finally settling upon one. "Does he know you aren't even seventeen?"

"No, he thinks I'm past twenty. I won't tell him unless he asks." Phélie smiled at her old chaperone. "It isn't so bad, he's kind and pleasant and he wrote that book of poetry I like so much to read from. It isn't as though he's some-some-some common deflowerer of maidens."

This revelation floored Marie-Thérèse. "Well. I could forbid you to see him again, of course, but what good would that do? You would merely find another-you've probably got a number of young men trailing you home or wherever it is you go during the day while I sit with your brother. Do what you like, only next time don't stay away all night and neglect to tell me where you've gone, it worries your brother and you know it's not good for him."

Phélie liked the poet, whose name was Michel L-, and while even years later she would smile at his memory, she would always and forever insist that she never truly loved him. Even though Michel had been most generous - made presents to her of money and trinkets, and she used all the money on doctors for her brother and sold most of the trinkets to pay household expenses; Phélie kept a few of the trinkets, for her poet liked to see her wearing them - even though he had been most generous and kind to her, always lavishing her with compliments as well as flowers and more tangible presents, she felt that he admired her as a source of his poetic inspiration. For during the period of some months that their liaison lasted, Michel published another work of poetry, and was in the process of composing yet another book at the time they parted.

In February of 1826, however diligent the efforts of his doctors, Marc-Antoine died. He contracted another illness, and fell into another feverish delirium. From delirium he passed into unconsciousness, and never woke.

Phélie was beside herself with grief. Her family was all dead - she had no one left to her save Marie-Thérèse, who was herself getting older, and her poet, whom she feared was slowly beginning to lose interest in her, since heretofore her poet was second in her affections to her brother. The brothers she had lost at the tender age of eight, she hardly remembered except as older boys who would tease her and pull her hair and call her names behind their parents' back. Her parents she missed, though it was only a vague memory of them, as her adolescence had occurred long after most of her family had passed away. Paul-Hyacinthe's face, too, had almost faded away due to the passage of time, but Phélie still occasionally remembered to go to the cemetery where he'd been buried, and put flowers there, to show that at least someone remembered the ten year old boy who would never grow old. But Phélie had a special connection to her older brother, Marc-Antoine - an older brother who was so much older as to have always been a grown man in her eyes. And though Phélie knew he wasn't the most clever or most handsome or most courteous man in the world, he was her brother and she adored, idolised, loved him.

And now he was gone, and Phélie couldn't understand what she would do now that he was not there.

The poet Michele tried valiantly to keep her affections, but Phélie was too caught up in her grief to think about him at all, and instead lived quietly with Marie-Thérèse, rarely going out any more, and returning to the small commissions of needlework and sewing shirts that they had lived on before. With two mouths to feed, rather than three, a lesser amount of money saw them through. They lived quietly for some months in this state of affairs, until another winter arrived.

Though it was not unexpected by now, as Marie-Thérèse had been growing ever more infirm, Phélie too watched Marie-Thérèse pass quietly away in that January of 1827. She moved out of the three-room apartment she had shared with her brother and Marie-Thérèse, and instead lodged in a tiny garret with one room - it had a window and a bed and a bureau, little more. She haggled with the landlord to let her have a book-case from another vacant room, and this, to her, was as good a home as any.

Phélie returned to her old habits of walking in the gardens of the Luxembourg. She had never known loneliness before. She was born into a large family, and even when many of her brothers died with her parents, she still had Marc-Antoine. She spent years in the company of the other convent school girls. And then there was her lover. Certainly she had sometimes been invited to the homes of her school friends, but those invitations had become fewer and fewer when they received no invitations from her. Who could entertain friends in a garret room with hardly enough room for one girl to stretch her legs?

One frigid, yet sunny, afternoon in a main walk of the Luxembourg, Phélie heard someone calling her name. She turned towards the sound of the caller's voice; no man, since her brother died and she left Michel, had ever looked for her. Phélie recognised a man of thirty-odd years walking towards her, wearing a hat and boots that cost her more than she paid in rent for her garret room, and a very expensively cut overcoat. It was her poet's publisher, who kept up a large bookshop connected with his publishing business.

"Mademoiselle Ophélie! I'm glad I've found you at last. Michel had told me you could be found here." It was a taller man who looked to be in his thirties, who had called to her. Phélie thought he seemed familiar, but could not immediately remember when Michel had introduced them, or who the man was. It surprised her, too, that he mentioned Michel: Phélie had thought he had long ago lost interest in rekindling their affair.

"Is he looking for me, then?"

"Oh, no," the man stood before her, smiling, "it was I who asked after you. I remembered having seen you at parties and dinners with him, and have been wondering for some time whatever became of you."

She smiled faintly. "Many things have happened in that time since we last met. I apologise that I cannot recall your name."

"Phillipe-Marcel d'Antin, book seller and publisher." He bowed and kissed her hand. "Forgive me, mademoiselle, but you look chilled. Allow me to take you somewhere warmer."

At first Phélie wasn't sure what to make of this man. His cheeks were red, but as they met outside in January, it could be from the cold. His manner was effusive, but that could be explained by his story, that he had been trying to find Phélie and was merely relieved to have found her. But what could he have wanted her for?

d'Antin took her to a fashionable coffee-house, and within half an hour, he gave her the explanation she was looking for.

"Mademoiselle Ophélie, forgive me for being so forthright, but if you will permit me to be quite open and honest with you, I hope you will understand."

Phélie, smiling, nodded at him to continue.

"The last time I had seen you, you were beautifully dressed and on Michel's arm. Many people, not just him and myself, found you quite enchanting that night. I thought you were a noble, of some ancient family, because of how well you carried yourself at those gatherings. But I find that you are nothing of the sort, which surprises me."

"No," Phélie interrupted, "no, I'm not even rich, let alone a blue-blooded aristocrat. I don't really care to be, either, not particularly. If you're hoping to woo me to you by tales of your wealth, I'm afraid that won't work anymore. I admit I tried to find a lover like Michel, with a kind heart and plenty of money, because I wanted to pay for doctors for my brother. He is dead, and I am alone in the world." By this time Phélie had heard many men were turned away from women who were too blunt with their opinions and too forthright with their observations; she wanted to see if this d'Antin, too, was the same type. He was not; he seemed only more enchanted by her direct manner of speaking.

"Forgive me," d'Antin said again, "I did not mean it that way. No. I had thought someone like me - a man who has a shop, who works a trade for a living, rather than writes or is rich enough to be idle - would be abhorrent to you. I am overjoyed to see that I am wrong; I've fallen in love with you, you see." He began to fidget with his coffee. "And for many months I tried to find where you live. Michel wouldn't tell me, for months he refused to even answer the question or give me some hint; until recently he admitted that he didn't know what neighbourhood you lived in, let alone what address, because you no longer answered at the house you lived in with your brother."

"I only had moved out within the last few weeks," said she, surprised.

Nodding, d'Antin continued. "Yes. He went to call on you last week, because I had asked so many times."

Phélie looked at him. "So you are telling me that you pestered Michel for months only for this one opportunity to talk to me, to perhaps woo me?" Though she knew that she was beautiful and that many men would lust after her, still it warmed her heart to hear a man like d'Antin say it openly, that he had longed for her. It dispelled the feeling of loneliness that had hung over her like a fog bank in recent weeks.

"Oh, I knew you were very likely to refuse," he said, his voice having grown ever more quiet throughout the conversation, "but it's gotten to the point I think about nothing else but seeing you all day, and then at night I dream of you. I have come, mademoiselle, to beg for a chance."

"Then I shall give it to you," Phélie said, smiling. "Show me your bookshop."

Incredulously, d'Antin pulled her closer to him, clasping her small hands between his much larger ones, looking into her eyes and searching her gaze for any hint of guile or flirtation. He found none; there was none. Phélie's interest was piqued not only by the fact that here was this man who actually sought her out because he wanted her, but here was a man who dealt in books for his living. Who could be more interesting to her?

"Do you mean that, far from being repulsed by my bookshop, it actually intrigues you?"

"Yes!" Phélie said, gripping his hands, "books are my favourite things. I've read so much-poetry, novels, from all over. I learned Latin, and a little English and Italian from the girls and nuns at school in the convent, and have been valiantly trying to learn them well enough to read the works of those nations."

"I read six languages," d'Antin told her, smiling too, even more enchanted by her obvious excitement, "and I can teach them all to you if you like."

This man, Phélie would always remember, this man, and not the poet Michel, was the one who first stole her heart away. Not from his good looks, or the money that he had, or even his untiring amours, but from his willingness and pleasure to give her books to read and more languages in which to read them. She lived with him for several years, and he generously bestowed books upon her at every turn. Anything that she expressed even the vaguest interest in would turn up as a present for her. He lived in a first-floor apartment, with enough rooms that he could allow her one of her own, and she filled it with books and pots of flowers that sat by the window. Michel was full of presents and compliments and flowers, and was certainly pleasant, but Michel did not have the passion nor the richness of emotion that d'Antin had, and this attracted Phélie almost as much as the vast arrays of books that she had nearly complete access to.

And for several years, Phélie was happy. She had more books than she had ever imagined possible; she never had to count every last coin in her purse to make sure there was enough to eat and to pay the landlord; she had plenty of nice clothes; she was given total control over how the house was decorated.

Phélie loved lilies the most of all the flowers that grew, and she loved velvet the most out of all the fabrics that were made. She loved rich colours like violet and burgundy, forest red and navy blue, bronze and deep grey. Most often, however, she wore skirts and dresses of black. This had become her habit, after having worn a black outfit for school, and black for mourning her brother, she had grown to love the colour. She would adorn it with pretty lace collars, and would often set off the deep black of her attire with purple feathers in her hairstyle. Many people found her odd, but d'Antin found her enchanting and beautiful and never found reason to complain about her appearance, for to him it seemed every new dress or ensemble she tried was more beautiful and more suited to her than the last.

Phélie had the rare face and complexion to wear nearly any colour she wanted, whether brilliant bright colours or pale delicate pastels or rich deep shades, and rather than try on every colour and every fabric she found, she chose to stay with the rich deep dark shades that she loved so much. And though velvet was her favourite, she wore any cloth that looked and felt nice against her skin, whether damask or silk or anything else at all.

In spring and summer she would pluck lilies from the pots she grew them in, and put them in her hair. The first time d'Antin saw her in the deep purple dress he'd given her for her birthday, with the delicate lilies in her hair, he immediately contracted a painter to get her picture. Phélie laughingly obliged him, and sat for the painter for ten days before the man finally presented a beautifully-done full body portrait of her - lilies in her hands and her hair, and spread around her feet, and her beautiful gown and hair in gorgeously rendered oil paints. Phélie had never sat for a portait before, but the painter had taken her aside and said he would happily paint her at any time she would like. She smiled and told him she would perhaps come by his studio one day; though she had no illusions that he meant to take her as a lover as well, still she thought it was better to be courteous and kind, and after all perhaps she would see him at his studio one day when she was not with d'Antin any longer. For though Phélie loved d'Antin, and knew he loved her, she also knew it was a liaison that could not last forever: d'Antin had consumption, and had been steadily getting worse.

When one day d'Antin's sister moved in with him, to look after him in his illness, Phélie knew things were going to change for her all over again. d'Antin's sister looked at her with complete and utter disapproval and disdain; the woman wanted no part of the mistress.

Though it hurt her deeply to leave, without even a kiss goodbye since she knew she wouldn't see him again, Phélie had no wish to sit by another man's deathbed, as she had for her brother, especially knowing as she did that d'Antin was so far gone as to hardly know the difference between herself and his sister, and that any moment she spent by her lover's bedside she would have to do so with his sister's unpleasant gaze bearing down upon her the entire time. She therefore took her pretty clothes, her books, her pots of flowers, and the money she had carefully put away, and moved into a garret apartment, the one that she lived in at the opening of our story. She also quietly took away many other books which Michel loved, seeing that his sister started trying to sell them off without any consideration for their worth. Were his sister the type of woman that did not disapprove of her brother having a mistress instead of a wife, Phélie knew she wouldn't have to do these things in quiet without being seen; but the sister was not that type of a woman, as she said repeatedly.

Through Michel and d'Antin, and their friends, she had gained a not inconsiderable circle of her own friends, and was often invited to dinner parties or dance parties at their houses. Though she missed d'Antin, and sadly attended his funeral (standing apart from his family and wearing sober black attire unadorned with any jewels, feathers, lace, or flowers, and even then the subject of scornful glances and ill-spirited gossip), she was no longer lonely, she was no longer alone in the world, and she was no longer uncertain how she would live. Though her family and all her loved ones had died before she had even reached her legal majority, she had gained a solid second family of friends, and moreover during all these lonely periods, she had found a sure friend in her books. Despite all the sorrows of her first twenty years, she remained happy, pleasant, smiling, and above all the most beautiful woman most of her friends and acquaintances had ever known.

This was Hermangarde Ophélie Marie Opal Améthystine Esméralda Thérèse Thiérry de Quiquevaille, and this is how she greeted the new decade that began in 1830.


	3. Chapter 3

On a particular afternoon in the autumn of 1831, Jehan Prouvaire sat at his usual place in the back room at the café Musain, surrounded by a quill pen, some papers with a few lines written upon them, and a book propped up against a small pile of other books. Nestled in among this literary collection was his lunch and a bottle of wine. Prouvaire always found it far easier to concentrate on poetry or studying when his hunger was appeased and there was plenty of wine on hand to give his muse a bit of encouragement whenever she lagged.

He was alone in the back room, but not for very long; he had only made it partway through lunch when he heard the familiar sound of boots tromping casually down the corridor from the front room, and Courfeyrac came in the room. What he saw there was Jehan, sitting in his customary place in the back room, twirling a partly eaten bit of bread in one hand, idly toying with his quill pen in another, and wearing a thoughtful, faraway expression on his face.

"What's this, then, dear Jehan? Playing at being Enjolras during a less-political discussion?" All smiles, Courfeyrac sat down by Prouvaire at the table. "Oh, there's your wine; it completely destroys the illusion of Enjolras, you know. Well, that, and your hair - far too dark to ever be mistaken for his."

"I wasn't trying to imitate Enjolras," Prouvaire said, returning Courfeyrac's smile, "only contemplating. I've been writing poetry about my newest mistress, and only a few of them have been finished. See how many unfinished poems there are! So here I am thinking about it while I appease my muse's hunger for food and wine."

Courfeyrac helped himself to a bit of Prouvaire's lunch - and of course some of the wine. "A new mistress, you say? I congratulate you. It's been weeks, months even, since you've been able to write love poetry for someone real, rather than someone imagined, or for our dear Patria."

"Yes, a new mistress, and she's quite lovely." Jehan didn't make any comment about the free and easy way with which Courfeyrac appropriated half of his lunch, only hailed Louison on her way back from the washroom to bring another bottle of wine. "Combeferre told me you went with him yesterday to recruit some Polytechniciens."

"I did, in fact." Courfeyrac set his hat down by the plate of food, and leaned back in his chair after pouring himself another glass of wine. "Enjolras had met their-well, it's hard to call Dusommoir their leader, since those five men aren't really making a big enough group to be considered an organised society, but he did most of the talking. Enjolras had met him last week, at some other café in the rue Saint-Michel that he occasionally visits."

"I know the one you mean," replied Prouvaire, munching on his lunch thoughtfully. "I don't know why Enjolras goes there, to be honest with you: their greatest claim to fame is their house red wine, which I know for a fact he doesn't drink."

"He doesn't drink the white, either," said Courfeyrac cheekily. "He likes them because they get more of the right-leaning journals than the Musain here does. Also they have much stronger coffee, although I personally think it tastes like gravel."

"So does Musain's," pointed out Prouvaire. "I'll take their wine over their coffee any day, and their wine isn't what people come here for."

"Anyway, he goes because they get more newspapers than Musain or indeed any of the other more likely republican haunts. Also, I've seen him meeting people there. I can't tell you how much is republican business; it's usually one-on-one meetings. But that's where Enjolras met Dusommoir, who told Enjolras about his four other friends who didn't need any more convincing to join us."

"And so you and Combeferre went to see what sort of men they were."

"They've got guns, and didn't need much coaxing to make some ammunition on the sly." Courfeyrac shrugged. "Then again, they were Polytechniciens, so I'm sure they know what they're doing. As far as their political opinions, I have to say it must be Enjolras' way with words that got them together, they're rather lukewarm in comparison to us."

Prouvaire looked at Courfeyrac in surprise. "What do you mean, lukewarm? Combeferre thought they were rather trustworthy."

Shaking his head, Courfeyrac drained his glass before continuing. "Lukewarm and trustworthy aren't mutually exclusive. I don't think they'll go to the police, I'm just not terribly convinced they'll come to arms when the revolution starts. Two of them looked very hesitant, for example, when we asked whether they knew anyone else with guns or ammunition that might join in, and one of them only reluctantly admitted he had a sabre and some pistols on hand to add to the arsenal. Combeferre talked with them far more than I did, as he seems to be at least on passing acquaintance with most of them, so I observed most of the political talk."

"And?" Prouvaire smiled at this, knowing that Courfeyrac didn't exactly keep silent, either.

"Well, I did buy them all wine," Courfeyrac admitted, "and one of them, Montclair - he's one of the ones I found somewhat lukewarm, by the way - is a capital hand at billiards. I engaged him in a game and he explained to me his reluctance: he'd got his mistress with child and he hated the thought of committing openly without consideration to fighting where he could lose them their only means of support." Courfeyrac shrugged again. "We all must decide, of course, what the best course of our lives is, but there is no greater sacrifice than for dear old Patria, as I explained. If some die in the fight for the future, well, it might not be helped, but we'd die so others might live, and live freely. He promised me he'd think it over, and then he promised me he'd pay me my winnings tomorrow." Another cheeky grin. "He may be good at billiards, but I am better."

This made Prouvaire laugh. "No doubt you know why I won't play with you anymore."

"You're also terrible at it," replied Courfeyrac fondly. "I think those men will probably come around. I urged Combeferre to invite them to come to one of our meetings here at the Musain, and hopefully Dusommoir at the very least will stop by next week when we are all together."

"Ah, good; then I can see what kind of man he is. Combeferre thinks well of him, anyway, and I trust his judgment of character."

"Enjolras does too."

Thoughtfully, "And I suppose it's not such a bad thing. Montclair worrying about his mistress," Prouvaire added. "The thought, some days, of women made poor by circumstances outside their control, makes me weep for them. A man takes a woman as his lover, very well! but when that man abandons her, where shall she go? Her family? very well! but if they are dead? She might have friends, but if they are poor, or also have mouths to feed, perhaps they can't help her out either. And then you know boarding-houses are so strict about housing women who live alone. They charge them more, give them smaller rooms with drafty windows, that don't have a stove even! And if the poor girl has a child? No one to help her! These poor women, hungry and selling themselves, if only to feed a child that no one else loves!" Prouvaire turned his face away for several minutes.

"Yes, yes," Courfeyrac thumped Prouvaire on the shoulder. "It's a devil of a thing. We fight for them, Prouvaire, remember that! We fight so that these poor women have some recourse to them. And I don't think less of him for caring for those dependent on him. I only wish he wouldn't use family as his sole reason for not joining us. It sometimes sounds like a convenient excuse, to my ears; they gratefully jump on the slightest reason to avoid committing themselves to the final sacrifice." Courfeyrac knew which ways his priorities stood: as much as he loved women and Parisian cafés, he loved the republic still more, and would allow nothing to stand in the way of fighting for it. "If they have no one but him, very well, who can fault him for not leaving a child fatherless, or a woman without a man to provide a home for her, but perhaps... well, you're right, too. Men should provide for those under their care, who would be helpless otherwise. What kind of a man would he be, else?" Courfeyrac sighed. "But we need all the men we have. I've a mistress - and, as you've said, so do you and Combeferre. Will you abandon these women to go and fight too?"

"It's the right thing to do," said Prouvaire, quietly. "I have committed myself to the fight for our future, and would not back out. My mistress has friends, and some manner of private means. Furthermore, I have explained to her something of - of my political opinions. She would understand, if I fought. Would yours? Would Combeferre's? And then I suppose we might not all die in the fight, after all."

"Who knows what will happen?" Courfeyrac didn't keep the solemn expression for long, and abruptly flashed Prouvaire a hearty grin. "Come, let's not be glum - have some more wine."

Prouvaire waved at Louison, who brought them another bottle. "Oh, I don't mean to be glum. I was, after all, writing love poetry to my mistress," he said, as he filled both their glasses.

"Shall you tell me about her, then?" Courfeyrac smiled encouragingly.

"Oh, you devil, that's all you care about, isn't it!" Prouvaire exclaimed, but smiling too. "Well, I could. If you like, you can help me with my poetry. They're about her, you know. For her. That should be a start, don't you think?"

Courfeyrac leaned back in his chair again. "You know I've hardly any talent at composition. I can repeat one of your witticisms with great aplomb, of course; by the way, my mistress loved that last little quatrain you gave me, and she has even embroidered it on a bit of ribbon which she wears in her hair! But to write it, compose it, even to help? I'm afraid I'll be of little use to you."

"Oh, you won't have to do any writing or composing at all," Prouvaire waved his hands indifferently, pretending not to have heard the aside, as the 'quatrain' Courfeyrac mentioned were a few haphazard lines verging on the slightly obscene, not really poetry at all. "I've got plenty in my head to do all of that. No, you need only help me decide which turns of phrase sound more charming, or more pleasant to a woman's ear, or pretty, or things of that sort. You always did know those sorts of things better than anyone else. Do you see?"

"Yes, of course. It's good you asked for more wine, we'll certainly need it." Courfeyrac put his feet comfortably up on the table, though carefully out of way of bottles, food, or inkstands, and reached for a fresh cigar.

The hours fell away in this pleasant manner. The first two or three sonnets that Jehan scribbled were met with much applause and praise. Prouvaire, pleased to have an audience and a helpful ear to bounce ideas off of, was more prolific than ever; and never even stopped to consider that on this afternoon, the rest of his friends at the law school were attending some lecture that Courfeyrac was doing his best to avoid. Had been, in fact, for quite some weeks now, because there were far too many other interesting things to do on pleasant afternoons in Paris than waste them in some stuffy lecture hall; leave that for the students with nothing better to do. Still, as the clock ticked away minutes and then hours, with sonnet after sonnet being produced with more speed than Jehan's usual pace, Courfeyrac began to wonder. Odes to silken black hair and pretty little toes, verses in praise of white teeth and flashing eyes and pretty smiles, poetry exalting the manner in which her hips swayed when she walked and the soft tone of her voice, all of these were starting to go to Courfeyrac's head, more so than the third bottle of wine, which he had ordered and drained most of himself.

"Here, Courfeyrac, listen to this one and see what you think." Prouvaire laid his pen down, and Courfeyrac sighed and set down his glass; this had to be about the fourteenth sonnet he'd written. If it were the last, it would be terribly appropriate, but Courfeyrac had the sinking feeling that unless he attempted to discourage Prouvaire's prolixity, the poetry would go on long into the night. And while he loved Prouvaire's poetry, usually, and he adored hearing about pretty women, he also had other, more interesting plans, for how he intended to spend the evening. Besides, at this point, he was certain Prouvaire's muse no longer required a second human mind to encourage her to continue, but instead plenty of wine and a willing subject.

"I can get the full effect just as well if you let me read it; you don't have to reci-"

Too late; Jehan had already begun reading it, aloud. Another sonnet, of course, and ostensibly dedicated to his mysterious new lady-love's nose. Although earlier Courfeyrac had smiled and asked after meeting this new lady friend of Prouvaire's, by this point he had heard enough poetry about her virtues, charms, and attributes to plausibly sketch her and describe her to his friends - and he was no hand with a pencil. But he politely waited for Jehan to finish reciting the lines before saying anything about it.

"It's a lovely poem, and I think it flows quite beautifully. It's the sort of thing you could very well repeat to her while you were curled up in between love making sessions. As are most of the thirteen others, I confess. I, however, don't understand what makes her nostrils passionate, Jehan - have you even thought about the sorts of things you're writing as you moon over pretty Mam'selle? How can nostrils be passionate? Eyes, yes; mouth, oh yes; but nostrils? Really?"

Prouvaire looked down at his paper, full of blots, scribbles, flourishes, and some poetry, then back up at Courfeyrac. "Just because you don't notice such details on your women does not mean I must necessarily be equally ignorant. Besides, if you'd seen her, you'd certainly agree with the description given."

Courfeyrac spread his arms. "Oh, well, all right. I trust you to know the dear lady's radiant self far better, as I've not met her ... although, after hearing such detailed descriptions and praises of the lady's shining parts, it feels almost as though I have met her and known her well. A testament to a devoted poet who clearly knows his way around words and women's hearts almost equally."

This was a bit of praise that Jehan didn't ignore, and blushed deeply. "Oh, they're not that good - you see how quickly I dashed them off. But I do admit they came directly from the heart, and are words of love more aimed at passion than at carefully-conducted witticisms or seduction. I'm glad you like it."

"That is the point, of poetry, I've always thought," said Courfeyrac, grinning. "To display to your lady how very mad you are for her using pretty words and phrases. She'll love it."

"Perhaps she will, too." This caused a dreamy smile, but Courfeyrac wasn't about to let Prouvaire drift off into a reverie over his lover, not just yet.

"The poetry is all very lovely, of course, but the question needs asking, my friend." Courfeyrac had an interesting knack for changing the subject by introducing a new one right at the heels of the old one, while disguising his intention effortlessly by not varying his expression or tone of voice as he moved to a new topic of discussion.

"No," said Prouvaire suddenly, thinking he had guessed what Courfeyrac was about to say next. "No, you don't know her, and moreover, I shall not introduce you. You may keep your hands and eyes to your own collection, if you please." Who knew that in the shy, smiling, soft-spoken sweet poet, there could be a streak of intense jealousy?

"That is fair enough," responded Courfeyrac equably, "but that's not the question that needs to be asked."

"What then?"

"Have you actually told Combeferre about your newest love?"

"What gives you any idea that I have to be answerable to Combeferre about my mistress?" Prouvaire raised an eyebrow, studying Courfeyrac's expression.

"Oh, really, Prouvaire- everyone with eyes to see and ears to hear knows what sort of private affair you are carrying on with Combeferre. And by this I mean that even Enjolras is perfectly aware of it, even though he pretends not to acknowledge it."

"I see." Prouvaire, astonishingly, merely shrugged at this bit of information.

"In any case, Jehan, it might be kind of you to tell him before-"

"-before he hears it elsewhere, you mean. I suppose that's so. Anyway, he's got a girl of his own, and has done for weeks now, so if I'm to look at things in that light, I think it only fair that I have a girl too." He smiled at the surprise dawning in Courfeyrac's expression. "And here you thought you knew everything, didn't you?"

Courfeyrac laughed. "Ah, well, it is very obvious to me now that I do not."

Prouvaire nodded. "And I don't understand why you're making such a fuss over-over the affairs that Combeferre and I carry on between ourselves. What! do you imagine that an outpouring of friendly passion is anything to take seriously? It isn't a wedding, and he isn't my mistress; nothing of the sort."

"Well, no," admitted Courfeyrac, "he can hardly be anything like that. I only thought it would be kind to let him know that, seeing as you've got a girl to occupy your night time hours, he can expect not to see you nearly so often." Courfeyrac loved women and loved spending time with them, and was admittedly a bit of a rake. His philosophy towards his love-affairs was simple: "give your current lady the lion's share of your attention, and don't be unfaithful to her - however dallying with men or women of a higher social class doesn't count as being unfaithful." Courfeyrac was charming and no one had ever disavowed him of his admittedly-flawed philosophies; even the ladies who had caught him with his hand in another's cooking-pot, so to speak, could not speak very ill of him, at least not after some time had passed. Former lovers would speak of him with plenty of nostalgic affection, even if they were former lovers by dint of being unceremoniously put off for another. He had little difficulty in, after some cigars and wine, engaging in sexual adventures with men as well as women, and now and again hinted that he had even done it with one of each in the same bed. Overall, it was not Courfeyrac to whom Prouvaire ought to have been looking for advice on his own life in the bedroom. But to Prouvaire, he felt there was nothing similar between his affection for his newest mistress, and his fondness for his friend, and nothing Courfeyrac was going to say would change his mind on that notion.

"Do you think I'd intentionally neglect to tell him something of that importance?" Prouvaire gave Courfeyrac an intent look.

"Ah, no." Courfeyrac shook his head. "I see now that perhaps I've been sticking my nose into business I shouldn't have been. All right, it's clear to me you know what you're doing in this matter."

"I am glad you think so! Besides, as I have said, I told him last night, in fact quite exhaustively, about my mistress. He's got it into his mind that it's a good thing, and I think he wants to introduce his mistress to mine so that they can be friends. There, you see? if we are planning to introduce our mistresses, what then can be so wrong with what we are doing?"

Courfeyrac laughed. "Nothing, of course. I misunderstood you and him to have been having a-a, well, inverted sort of relationship instead of having mistresses, but I have been mistaken. Forgive me. -and no, it wasn't me who passed along rumours to the rest of our friends. Most of them seem to have worked it out on their own. Possibly Combeferre even told Enjolras of it himself. I don't know; only that no one seems to have been surprised by the affair going on between you."

"I hadn't really thought it would be worth discussing." Prouvaire shrugged, a lot less on edge now than he had been at the outset of this particular topic of conversation. "It isn't so very strange, is it? Surely plenty of men have become close to their friends, close enough to throw aside all barriers and boundaries. David and Jonathan, perhaps."

"And Patroclos and Achilles, too," added Courfeyrac. "Very well, you've made your point. I won't be mistaking Combeferre for your substitute for a mistress; or you for Combeferre's. I might've asked you about it, you know," lowering his voice a little, even though the back room was empty save for the two of them, "but it isn't the sort of thing one asks his friends, do you see what I mean? 'Oh, hello, Prouvaire, there are rumours that you and Combeferre are shagging on the sly, ought we to be concerned?' That sort of thing."

This made Prouvaire laugh. "Oh, I understand that. But, Courfeyrac, there are more discreet ways to ask about it or point it out without mentioning it directly."

"Ah! you are right." Courfeyrac looked at the half-empty bottles. "Well, now, it won't do to be unfriendly, will it."

"Drink with me," replied Prouvaire, "I am just going to put all these poems together with my books, first, so I don't lose any of them."

Courfeyrac, meanwhile, poured the wine out into their glasses.

"Say," said Prouvaire suddenly, as he tucked the pages of his poetry into the bigger of the two books he carried, "I thought Bossuet said Blondeau's lecture was today."

"Oh, you've found me out, have you?" Courfeyrac laughed. "Don't worry about that. Bossuet usually takes notes for me. Him, and my friend Desbruleys. I can't fathom how they can sit in that stuffy lecture hall on days like this."

"But you're sitting inside a café with me," pointed out Prouvaire. "How is that any different?"

"The company's better," Courfeyrac replied immediately. "Besides, Blondeau's poetry is utterly terrible. You would wring your hands in utter contempt."

"I am sure of it."

"Anyway, he's crossed my name off of the roll."

"What! So you'll have to pay the enrolment fee again next term?"

"I suppose I must," Courfeyrac waved a hand dismissively. "It's all the same, after all. Do you know how dry it is, the law? All the things that important men decided to outlaw or require. Enjolras understands it far better than I do; I can never quite wrap my mind around the arcane requirements of inheritance and estates, but Enjolras speaks that language more fluently than you do with your Italian."

"That's because Enjolras seems to actually care for it, in some strange way."

"Yes. Somehow he finds it interesting. When he has it in mind to go."

"Have you seen him there at the law school, then?"

"Not recently. Then again, if he spends all his time recruiting in cafés and writing up pamphlets like the one we published last month, I can quite understand how he never has time to go to class! And you? Do you ever go to classes?" 

"I didn't enroll this term. You know that; I've told you that."

"Yes, you did. It slipped my mind. Of course, even though I've enrolled I've hardly gone much more than you have! But let us not talk about such dull things."

"Agreed," said Prouvaire. "Have you gone to that new play at the Odéon? I hear their newest leading lady alone is worth the price of admission."

"I haven't, actually," replied Courfeyrac. "My mistress wants to go, however, so I'm sure we shall get to go eventually."

"Do tell me if you see it, then," said Prouvaire. "Perhaps I might join you."

Courfeyrac nodded, standing up. "I am taking my mistress to the Opéra tonight. She has been pouting so prettily for months, and now that they've got that famous tenor in, I've run out of excuses not to go. My cousin keeps telling me I have only to ask and I can borrow his box whenever I'd like, so I am really overdue for a night at the Opéra. The lady insists, and finally they are putting on something I think I haven't heard yet, so tonight we go. But I have to dress first. I have a whole box; do you want to bring your mistress tonight, or is it too late notice?"

"Tonight? But it's only in a few hours. Don't tell me you haven't filled up your box with your friends already."

"Actually, no, now that you mention it." Courfeyrac put his hat on again. "I've got plenty of space, especially for just two more."

"Let me ask her, then," said Prouvaire. "I am actually going over directly, she invited me tonight. Perhaps she'll want to go. But we might not be there very early."

"I'll tell you what. I'll be there after eight o'clock. You can meet me there by the staircase, and if you're late, I'll be in box number twenty-seven." Courfeyrac was off with another cheeky wave, barely even waiting for Prouvaire's nod of acknowledgement.

Prouvaire himself gathered his books, and went off in a different direction to see his mistress.


End file.
